Burning Bridges
by atree
Summary: After Ganon, Zelda and Link investigate the malfunction of the Divine Beasts and gather support to rebuild Hyrule. [Zelda-centric, mild Zelink if you squint]


A/N: This is a quick oneshot I wrote after beating the game. I just ran with the post-credits scene. Has been slightly edited after release.

Burning Bridges

 **i. lost in lakes**

The Zora palace is the grandest piece of architecture that survives the Calamity. Some survive that are larger, and some survive that are more populated, but none survive that are more beautiful. The palace stands as tall as the waterfalls surrounding it, built using opal that more than a few tourists have mistaken for glass, so clear and bright and sparkling is its surface – but glass is, of course, too fragile for construction. Yet opal, too, is fragile – Zelda taps her fingers against a polished wall and imagines that with a little more prodding, a little more sharpness, the entire thing will shatter and leave them all treading water.

Behind her, Muzu clears his throat – or gills.

"You have fixed Vah Ruta?"

"No," Zelda says simply. "The Divine Beast will never move again."

Muzu's tentacles quiver – hammerheads, Zelda has discovered, are the most dramatic of the Zora. With all those flaps and appendages and a mouth the size of a durian, every little expression sends their faces into histrionics.

"Are you sure?" Muzu splutters. "Our engineers say it is most likely temporary. With replacement parts – "

"Enough, Muzu."

King Dorephan towers over everyone else in the throne room; when he speaks his voice floods the room like a river loosed from its dam. The Prince – Sidon, is it? – is uncharacteristically subdued. The two of them look at her solemnly. In their hearts they – the father and the brother – must have known, even before the great gears of Vah Ruta stopped spinning, even before they started.

"Mipha is…gone then," Sidon says.

Beside Zelda, Link exhales. He turns to her, and even without looking back she feels the accusation in that stare.

She nods.

To see a Zora cry – the sight of it is so strange that Zelda almost takes out the Sheikah Slate and snaps a photo. And a king, least of all. Dorephan's grief is silent, great heaves rippling through them, and the throne room shakes, and the palace shakes, and somewhere to the east Vah Ruta is also shaking, crumbling after a century of neglect without its pilot's spirit to hold it together.

Sidon is more restrained. His body is taught, face hard and expressionless without a trace of the beaming smile he gave her upon her arrival.

"Surely we can find another pilot," Muzu says. His grief is in his lips – drawn downwards in a frown that eclipses any Hylian frown, Muzu, the old hammerhead, always pragmatic. "Any Zora will be glad to have the opportunity. None will be as accomplished as Lady Mipha, but surely someone will be serviceable."

"The Divine Beast was already dying. It _has_ been dying for a hundred years. Mipha managed to hold it together for one last attack against Ganon, but not even she could've continued to make it last much longer."

The throne room is shaking, shaking, stops. Sidon places a fin on his father's side. Dorephan wipes his eyes with one giant flipper.

"Thank you, Princess. I know you've done all you could. It will be a good thing, I think – we've relied on the Divine Beast's waters for too long. And you, too, Champion. I'm sure Mipha was glad to have been able to see you one last time."

Link bows, a gesture that he uses to hide his face. But Zelda knows all his tricks, and in the periphery she watches his reflection on the opalescent floor: the grief is raw, rawer than even Sidon's or Dorephan's, as if his emotions perceive their master's reticence and so concentrate their efforts on the one outlet he cannot control. And sharp as a spear or Ganon's claws or her father's derision, Zelda feels a stab of jealousy. _Mipha – you were always loved._

Zelda thinks, will you make that same expression when I die?

"About my earlier offer," she says.

"Have you no respect?" Muzu barks, and he is also crying. "King Dorephan has just lost his daughter for the second time! Why bring that up now?"

"We Zora have considered your offer."

It is Sidon who speaks, his voice calm and measured.

"We are willing to spare what we can to rebuild Hyrule, but we cannot do everything you ask of us."

"Hyrule has no need of half-measures."

"Then the Zora decline," Sidon says quietly. "And now, I think you'd better go."

With a curtsy, Zelda leaves, and her Champion follows. And in their wake the Zora guards and citizens watch them with curiosity and growing distrust, these Hylians who can make their King miserable so. Outside, rain is falling – rain is always falling in Lanayru. It is not until they are well past the gates, walking along the bridge that connects the Zora with Lanayru mainland, that Link stops her.

"You never asked," Zelda says lamely.

 _Because I was scared. I was scared to bear your grief alone, to see how much you cared for her. We were princesses both, but she was all I ever wanted to be._

The shame makes Zelda look away, at the glorious crashing waterfalls of Zora's Domain and the silhouette of the Divine Beast sinking into its final graveyard and – who knows? Maybe in another ten thousand years another foolish race will dredge it up from the reservoir.

Perhaps Link senses her shame, because he suddenly seems ashamed, too, of his accusations. He falls in step behind her, just as he always has, just as he always will. And in silence, they exit Zora's Domain.

 **ii. what fire leaves**

The Goron are an absurdity. Hard work for little gain – that seems to be the motto of these mountainfolk who toil all day in the mines. Their precious ores can easily be sold so they never have to work another day in their lives, and what do they do? They eat them.

"I knew as much," Bludo says gruffly. "You could tell the thing wasn't going to hold. That Daruk, it was good of him to do what he did."

"No one could've done better," Zelda agrees.

Yunobo sniffles, but the boy – it is strange to call him boy, when he is twice the size of her – is always sniffling. Zelda is amazed to learn that Yunobo is Daruk's direct descendant and capable of using Daruk's Protection – a talent not passed down among the other Champions. Both Bludo and Yunobo take the news well, though Zelda is unsure if that is due to stock Goron stoicism or the fact that neither of them knows Daruk well. Yunobo is more familiar with Daruk's monument than Daruk himself.

"The thing's done us more trouble than good," Bludo says. "It's a bit of a relief, if I'm being honest. I'm getting too old to deal with it if it ever acts up again."

Link shifts, metal plates clanking. Zelda can't see his face through the steel-cage mask, but she imagines the brows drawn in, nose wrinkled, lips pressed in a line. Link has always been a stickler for temperature. Daruk's loss – _death_ is not the term. Can spirits die? – has left him taciturn (more than usual). Out of everyone present, perhaps out of anyone still living, he knows Daruk best. Though Zelda has hoped to see the same kind of grief on his face as with Mipha's loss, she has not expected it, and it is not there. Link sits inside his Flamebreaker armor like a man inside a fortress.

As for herself, she has downed a Fireproof Elixir, with three more in her pouch. Armor is unbecoming of princesses.

"Have you considered my offer?"

Truthfully, she is unsure whether Bludo is the one to discuss things with. The Goron lack a standard government. Bludo happens to be the one with the most authority, even though he is nothing more than a manager.

"Yeah, I've looked it over," Bludo says, scratching his extravagant, four-knot beard. "To be frank, Princess, it doesn't look good for us. None of my boys will stand shipping out half our ore to Hyrule. Ten percent, sure, maybe even fifteen. But fifty? And the representative bit – well, we've done a pretty good job running the show so far, wouldn't you say? Having some uppity nobleman come down wouldn't sit right with the boys. Now, if you're up for some negotiations – "

"There will be no negotiations."

Goron, Zelda reflects, will never be statesmen. They have never learned the art of disguising their emotions. Bludo's shock is as evident as the lava bubbling below them. He does not understand. Contracts are meant to be negotiated. You start out with the highest terms you can get away with and slowly whittle them down, both sides meticulously taking and giving away, five percent here, ten percent there, cut out a clause, add another in. That is how things are always done.

But the new age is dawning; it's already here, it's already been here. From the caldera resonates a grinding noise, and the mountain trembles, pots and pans scuttering dangerously close to the table. Vah Rudania is breaking. Zelda has watched its gears melt from the heat, the salamander slowly losing its grip on the mountainside until one day, a week or a month from now but surely not much longer, the last of its legs will give out and the entire Beast will plunge into the lava and become a part of the mountain forever. There will be no salvaging the salamander. The thought brings Zelda joy.

She picks herself up and dusts the red-brown Goron soil from her dress.

"Do you accept?" she asks again.

Bludo looks sad; he thinks he is disappointing her.

"The Goron will have to decline, Princess."

Already she is on her way out the door. Bludo calls behind her, asking her to talk it over more. But there is no more talk to be had; there never has been. Already she is out on the street, already she has downed her second elixir, crushed lizards and butterfly wings, already she is starting the trek back down the mountainside.

 **iii. the gossip mill**

"He was a real bastard," Kaneli says. "That's the bit they leave out of the stories. Yeah, he was an amazing flier and the best damn archer the Rito's ever seen, but Revali's biggest talent was getting under people's feathers."

Link snickers.

"The archery competition," Kaneli continues, waving a massive wing. "He was almost disqualified. Got into a fight with one of the other contestants. He only managed to get through because the other bird started the fight, but _you_ try to stay calm when someone calls you an 'unhatched fledgling still eating worms from his mother's beak.' By the time Revali became Champion, nobody could stand him. We gave him the biggest damn send-off the village's ever seen, because we were all overjoyed that he was going to Vah Medoh and finally leaving the village.

"And when he finally developed that gale he was so proud of? Wouldn't stop showing off like it was the best thing since hearty salmon. Which it was, but he damn tore off the scaffolds every time he used it. And he didn't teach it to anybody either. Not that anyone was begging. Someone asks, he'd cross his wings and turn up his beak and ask what made _them_ worthy of learning anything from _him_. He eventually did, of course. But you could tell it killed him to do it, and he never let anyone forget it was him who came up with it. That was Revali."

Link claps his hands, leaning forward eagerly. He looks like a child who has stumbled upon the royal treasury; if Zelda leaves now and comes back a year later, she will probably still find him sitting on the elder's floor, his clothes enwoven with the carpet, listening to Kaneli's withering stories of his rival.

Zelda coughs politely. Link shoots her a dirty look.

"What I'm saying is I'm sorry he's gone," Kaneli says. "But ain't nobody's gonna miss him."

"Vah Medoh will need a temporary pilot," Zelda says. "To ensure that when it crashes, it won't endanger anyone. The eastern ocean is ideal."

"I'll let the others know. Probably Teba can do it fine." Kaneli trills, a low-pitched whistle that passes for a sigh among the Rito. "Most won't lose feathers over it. Rito are a proud race – Revali embodied that part of us more than we liked to admit. Seeing something fly higher than we can, longer than we can, farther than we can…well, that stings."

Zelda shields her eyes to glance at the sun: Vah Medoh soars in the clouds, perhaps the greatest feat of engineering the world has ever seen. To make a Divine Beast crawl or walk or swim is one thing; to make it fly is another. At its current rate of descent, it'll hit groundfall in twenty-seven days. Hyrule is sparse enough that Vah Medoh can probably crash on any empty plain without causing damage, but it's best for it to crash into the ocean, where its stone and metal wings will crumple beneath the waves, its parts broken up and sunken deep or tossed onto a thousand unknown shores.

"Have you read my proposal?" Zelda says.

Kaneli fixes one great unblinking eye on her, the iris as large as her head.

"I may be old, Princess, but don't think you can pluck this bird that easily."

"I did not mean to offend," Zelda says, and it's true. "You are rejecting the offer, then?"

"I don't have the authority. I'm not so old to realize that being an elder has lost all its weight these days. But even so, I'll never stand for it. Come back with a new one, Princess, and I'll look it over, and if I like it I'll bring it up with the others."

"There will be no new proposal," Zelda says, and this, too, is true.

Kaneli _harrumphs_. Maybe he understands, wise old owl. Zelda stands up and bids farewell, already bracing herself against the scaffolds' high winds that can send an unwary traveler plummeting below. She pauses at the door opening onto the world like a cage. Link has not followed her. She looks at him. He looks back at her, then pointedly turns his gaze to Kaneli with an eager expression on his face.

"This one wants more stories!" Kaneli hoots. "Well, Champion, I've known Revali since he was a fledgling, and let me tell you, he was something even then…"

 **iv. stormcaller**

Vah Naboris is a wasteland. The other Divine Beasts are also dying, but the desert has accelerated the process. Even from a distance, Zelda thinks as she dismounts her sand seal, coughing away the dust, Vah Naboris looks not just dead but decayed. It has collapsed entirely, legs crushed and broken beneath its frame. The walls are eroded, splaying out gears and wires onto the sand. Lizalfos have made camp on its carcass. Link dispatches these easily, but their presence has made him tense. He carries one hand on his sword, and he walks now not behind her but in front.

Inside is stone and dust. They pick their way through the rubble – for what? You don't need to be an engineer to realize the Beast will never move again. Yet Zelda has still insisted on coming and even going inside.

She wants to see Urbosa.

She wants to see Urbosa's spirit floating in the air as Link has described it to her. She wants to see Urbosa smile and laugh and with a snap of her finger bring the wreck chortling back to life. She closes her eyes and feels Urbosa's spirit around her, but she knows that it is an illusion. She opens her eyes and sees Urbosa beckoning from the inner chamber, but this is equally unreal, and when they arrive they are greeted only by the broken mainframe. Zelda places a hand on the smooth black metal – the same place where Urbosa would stand to pilot the thing – and for a moment another hand overlies her own, but then the moment is gone, and for the first time in a hundred years, Zelda cries.

It is night when they return to Gerudo Town. Desert nights are as cold as their days are hot, and Zelda shivers despite her extra jacket and scarf. She leaves Link at the entrance – men are not allowed in Gerudo Town. Link has been inside before, of course, to get Riju's help, but he has refused to tell Zelda how and, for some reason, refuses to do so again.

"The Beast is dead," Zelda tells Riju and Buliara.

"We suspected as much," Riju says, absently petting her sand seal – Patrick? Pamilla? Paulina? "We saw it fall three days ago at Dragon's Exile. The crash it made stirred up a sandstorm that lasted all afternoon."

"I suggest you destroy it as quickly as you can. If the Yiga clan gets ahold of its parts, there's no telling what they can do."

"An excellent suggestion. I'll send a team over in the morning. How's Link doing?"

Riju's tone is casual, too casual, and she looks at Zelda out of the corner of her eyes attentively. The little princess seems to be quite fond of their Champion.

"He's doing well," Zelda says. He is _her_ Hero. If Riju wants to know more, let her ask him herself.

Wind howls through the room. The candles flutter, throwing long shadows against the carpet. In an ingenious stroke of architectural design, the Gerudo throne room is exposed to the desert elements, and Zelda clutches her jacket closer to herself, noticing that neither Riju nor Buliara seem to take heed of the cold even dressed in those (shockingly revealing) silks. The Gerudo palace is opulence given form: gold covers the throne, the chandeliers, the candle brackets, with an equal weight of gemstones embedded in every surface. Next to Riju sits the Thunder Helm on its pedestal.

Zelda has been here before, many times. In order to speak with Urbosa, she frequently found the slightest excuse to visit the Gerudo – and she wants to speak with Urbosa now, not this child queen, and, because that is clearly impossible, to speak _of_ Urbosa. But that, too, is impossible. She has brought up the subject before, but both Riju and Buliara refer to Urbosa as if referring to legend. They speak of Urbosa's leadership, her strength in battle, her mastery over lightning. They do not speak of her mischievous smile, of her warmth towards those she loved, of the time she stole the Queen's hat and put it on a sand seal, of her favorite fruit (wildberries), of the way her hair looks like an Octorok in the morning, of that _tsk_ she makes when she is brought bad news, of her laughter when laughing at a joke, of the way her green eyes light up during a storm (hungering for lightning), of the two gold bangles she wears in memory of Zelda's mother (of the way she touches them unconsciously when gazing at Zelda herself), of the way she sharpens her scimitar every night by the light of the stars.

Zelda shakes her head. It is not Buliara's fault to be born one generation late, nor Riju's fault two.

"I come with a proposal," Zelda says, handing over the parchment.

Riju has been expecting it. "The rebuilding of Hyrule. The Gerudo will, of course, lend all the help we can."

"I'm glad. The royal family requests two hundred thousand rupees to be delivered for the rebuilding process, one hundred thousand to be delivered immediately. We also request all architects, engineers, and able-bodied workers for at least two years, though we hold the right to retain them indefinitely longer. In addition, Gerudo Town and its subsidiaries, including Kara Kara Bazaar, will pay a twenty-five percent tax on all taxable commodities, effective immediately. A representative from Hyrule will also come down to oversee Gerudo Town. All proposed policies must be signed by him…"

Riju's eyes narrow as Zelda makes her speech, well-practiced by now, until at last she cuts off Zelda with a slash of her hand.

"These demands are impossible. Frankly, they're insulting. I understand your wish to rebuild your kingdom, but that will not happen overnight. Gerudo Town can spare fifty thousand rupees for the relief effort, and you can buy any artisans and engineers yourselves. Afterwards, and only afterwards, _maybe_ we'll discuss housing a representative, but we Gerudo have been autonomous for one hundred years – "

"There will be no negotiations," Zelda says lightly. "Either you accept the terms, or don't."

"This is not a treaty," Riju says incredulously. "We are trying to _help._ "

"There will be no negotiations."

Silence grows like a monster in the dark. The wind picks up again, dimming the candles. Riju's eyes stalk her. Riju no longer seems a child, her face a mask disguising the anger, betrayal, confusion that Zelda can almost taste on the tip of her tongue – sweet and salty and bitter, all at once. Is this some new political ploy? An intimidation tactic? What is to be gained by such a ridiculous offer? Riju will grow up to be a fine chieftain. Buliara is not so subtle. Hands clenched on the hilt of her claymore, she _growls_.

"Then we have nothing more to discuss," Riju finally says. "The night is cold. You have a long journey ahead of you."

Without another word, Riju rises and exits. The effect is entirely ruined by her sand seal flapping after her.

The throne room falls dark. The palace guards glare at Zelda, no doubt wondering why she's still here, but she doesn't care. Riju's slight is similarly as meaningful as dust in a desert gale. Zelda breathes in the scent of the throne room, safflina and wildberries, unchanged after so many years. She is foolish to seek Urbosa at Vah Naboris – a Divine Beast is duty, not home. _Here_ is where Urbosa lingers, where her spirit joins the unbroken line of chieftains stretching back millennia, where she died trying to protect, and if the dead return beyond their journeys to the Spirit Realm, here is where she will return with laughter.

Smiling, Zelda leaves the palace, back to the town entrance where her shivering Champion waits. In the distance, beyond the shadow of Dragon's Exile, she hears the rumblings of a storm.

 **v. a road horizons change**

"It was your fault my powers were locked, you know," Zelda says. "You were too bright."

They sit on the edge of Necluda, right before the grass gives way to Lake Hylia's tributaries. In the shadow of a palm tree, they eat a simple lunch: salt-grilled mushrooms and a seafood skewer of fish Link caught earlier that morning. Her Champion has developed a palate during his one hundred years of slumber. He is entirely focused on the food, chewing slowly as if contemplating each bite, and when she speaks he shoots her an annoyed look.

"The power of the princess can only be unlocked when the Hero is in mortal danger. But you were never in mortal danger until that final battle. So my powers remained locked. So, you see, if you were less competent – maybe get stabbed by a Bokoblin once in a while – then I would've gained my powers earlier, and nobody would've been in this mess."

His expression is so strange – mouth open with fish scales stuck between his teeth – that Zelda laughs.

"Don't worry, I'm joking. I don't blame you."

Sulking, Link goes back to his food, the glutton. Zelda lies down on the grass, picking at a stray armoranth. They've traveled so far in these past weeks – Lanayru and Tabantha and Death Mountain and Gerudo Desert – that it's a relief to simply be somewhere where the weather isn't trying to kill them. And now, at last, her work is finished. Kakariko Village is five days' ride away. She looks forward to seeing Impa again. But there's no rush. Maybe they will get there in eight.

"You're allowed to ask me, you know."

Link's ears perk up, and he looks at her quickly. Then he shakes his head.

 _It's not a knight's duty to question his Princess._

"I'm burning bridges," Zelda says. She holds up a hand to a blue and cloudless sky, peeking through splayed fingers. "I never expected the leaders to agree to my demands. I respect them too much. No, Hyrule will not be rebuilt with their help. Hyrule will not be rebuilt at all.

"The age of Hyrule is over. Look at them – Zora, Goron, Rito, Gerudo. They've more than recovered from the Calamity – they've prospered. They don't need a king or queen to tell them what to do any longer. Maybe they never did. What did we accomplish, in the end? We were the ones who created the Calamity. Our reliance on myth instead of ourselves. The Divine Beasts' power – we were drawn to it, entranced by it, destroyed by it. That's why the Beasts are better off dead. They should never have been dug up. So should the pre-Calamity days be forgotten. There's no use in reminiscing over Hyrule's glory when there's so much to do in the present.

"Nostalgia is dangerous. So long as nostalgia exists, so too will exist the temptation to _go back_ , to build it up all over again. It's not enough to put the matter aside. They must abhor the past, Link, reject it completely, reject _me_ completely. And because of what I've done, Hyrule is buried forever. From the start, we should've forged our own paths, not retread old ones. The price is paid. Hyrule is no more. Castle Town is no more. The line of Hyrule ended with my father. And new ones are beginning."

Zelda laughs, and Link manages to put aside his fish for a moment to look at her with an expression she has not seen since that final battle against hatred and malice incarnate: wonder. She listens to the crackling of the cooking fire as it dwindles to ember, and she mourns the final passage of the Champions, the paragons of their age – and what a way to end it! Even if it ended in tragedy – just as she rejoices at the sight of a field of blooming flowers. The noonday sun reaches its peak. The world is brighter than she has ever remembered it, brighter than sunset fireflies flickering inside Retsam Forest, brighter than the gleam of diamonds in the Goron mines, brighter than the mirror surface of Lake Hylia – they passed it two nights ago, camping beneath the bridge, waking early to watch Farrosh rise from the waters.

Flush with laughter, Zelda stands up and looks to the east, the west, the north, the south: four great machines grinding themselves to death, four great relics of the past. And so is she. What is a Princess without a kingdom?

 _A girl_ – and they head out once more.


End file.
